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Archive for June, 2013

Located in the desert coast of the Paracas bay, the perspective taken for the design of this house is a closed volume that extends along the total length of the plot. The main objective is to create a strong element of protection against the strong winds distinctive of this location. Through its path the volume expands, turns and embraces a wide space in the open where all pathways are united around the swimming pool, terraces and landscape. Protected by a huge exposed concrete mass, these spaces enjoy the strong sunlight throughout the whole year.

This project is located in Mosman on a north facing slope looking across Sydney’s Middle Harbour to the Spit Bridge and Clontarf. The site falls away dramatically from a broad and densely landscaped verge on the street frontage, with a high sandstone cliff forming the southern boundary. The house is nestled into this cliff, shielding it from the street, where it appears as a single storey, focusing attention on the magnificent view to the north. Entry is from the side street across a small bridge to a front door that opens to a grand stair descending the full height of the house and dividing it into two clearly differentiated volumes. The southern volume contains the service spaces, bathrooms, laundry, dressing room and a small study, while the northern volume contains the living areas and bedrooms. The glass roofed stair between these volumes has an ambiguous reading, neither inside nor out. It is only when one passes through a series of Oak framed portals that you are officially inside. The lowest level contains children’s bedrooms and a games/TV room that opens to the swimming pool terrace. An undercroft below this level contains the pool equipment and plant room. The middle level contains the main living areas, garage and a large north facing outdoor room opening off the kitchen and dining room. The upper level is given over to the main bedroom suite, home office, study and main entry. The simplicity of the external cement rendered form is enriched with an overlay of light bronze anodised aluminum windows, sliding doors and external sun control louvres, while the interior is defined by the Oak joinery and Travertine floors. The northern elevation is composed of a series of stepped cantilevered roofs and balconies with full height ellipsoid aluminium louvres screening the western facade from the afternoon sun and the neighbouring property.

Creating an L shaped house, determined by the lot’s geometry, with flowing mass of blocks with horizontal lines and characteristics. The structure is relatively closed in the direction of the street in order to provide privacy, while part of the design concept was to create a stimulus and attract people to enter the house, like peeking through a keyhole. This concept is translated into the design of a front façade, built out of two layers with an opening in the wall, while the second layer, the inner wall, is in black stone cladding, with glass windows.

The program is composed of 2 apartment blocks of 36 flats and 7 blocks of Multi-Family Dwellings with 26 flats. Each typology correspond to different ways of living: the first one looks like \”classic\” and fixed, while the second one is atypical and evolutionary. The aim is to answer with a maximum of possibilities to the different buyers’ demands (the first buyers, investors, families, early couples, etc …).

In large industry structures, the construction of the industrial building is based on logistic, distribution and volumetric requirements determined by the production. It is one of the few building types whose value is measured more in terms of equipment assets than how it performs as social infrastructure.

An ambitious master plan was designed for the construction of a multipurpose modern city in Jinhua. In the spirit of this plan, the local government commissioned a tea house to be built beside a pond in a park next to the river that runs through the city. The concept was reworked formally to create a structure that also serves as a mirror—the lower part reflects the upper part, thus producing an effect of continuous space. Our first concept was totally open and functioned as a mask in relation to the neighboring pavilions.

The project site is in Clichy-sous-Bois (a Parisian suburban area) inside the urban distribution plan of Dhuys and part of the overall urban renovation masterplan of Clichy-Montfermeil. The site presents great contrasts, tall council blocks built in the 60s on one side and the Bondy’s forest on the other. The project site being precisely on the limit between these two, the forest and the council blocks, draws the project to resolve the transition enhancing these components and strengthening their relationship in a positive way.

The IFSanté is a 3200 square-meter Health Formation Institute building in Lomme, France, for the Catholic University. The site is near the Saint-Philibert Hospital and the subway, in a new neighborhood named “Humanicité” and composed of several open blocks crossed by a large pedestrian avenue.

Between the historical responsibility and the new ways of living. Residential building in “Barri dels Velluters”, very degraded historic district, however, attractive and possible. It is an initiative of private nature that is added to a series of public proposals (social housing, equipment) intended for the recuperation of the urban center. The project assumes responsibility of the surroundings and responds to the problems of the current dwelling. A program of 19 minimum units, between 30 and 50 m2, the ground floor is intended for people with reduced mobility.

The Border School is intended to provide teaching accommodation for children of migrant families in Mae Sot, Tak, Thailand, close to the border of Burma. The land on which the school is situated is leased as migrant teachers and students cannot legally own it. As such, landlords may take over the land together with any buildings on it at anytime. As such, the school is designed as a modular portable school that can be easily dismantled and re-assembled on another possible site.